Love & Hate
by silvereyedbitch
Summary: Setting: Same results as my other stories after Calesta's defeat. Gerald is revived with all his powers intact. However, skip ahead to what usually happens in my stories relationship-wise. They discover the strange connection between themselves has turned itself inside out and into love, though neither really knows how to handle it truly. Warnings: M/M, OOC quite a bit


Disclaimer: Not Friedman. Not ever. Just having fun with her creations again.

Setting: Same results as my other stories after Calesta's defeat. Gerald is revived with all his powers intact; still evil and, well, still _Gerald_. However, skip ahead to what usually happens in my stories relationship-wise. They discover the strange connection between themselves has turned itself inside out and into love, though neither really knows how to handle it truly. After their first night together, Gerald awakens in the morning to find he is alone in bed. Tantrum maybe? Oh yes…

**Love & Hate**

"_The connection between love and hate is universally misunderstood. They are not separate. They are actually opposite ends of the same feeling, the same emotion. How quickly one can turn to the other; and how quickly one can be mistaken for the other as well…" _

_-Musings of Gerald Tarrant, Neocount of Merentha, Prophet of the Church of Unification_

Gerald awoke in the fine light of morning and stretched his arm back seeking the bed's other occupant. A few years in the making, this new thing kindled between them had twisted everything in the Hunter's life into a rioting conundrum of insanity. Well, maybe it wasn't _that_ bad, but he certainly felt distinctly off-balance. No one had ever had the effect on him that Vryce did. No one had ever seen so utterly into his soul and still found something of value, something to cherish. How unprepared he felt! They had collided into each other last night, flesh to flesh, and the very feeling of rightness to it left him breathless. In the morning aftermath, however, how would they now react to each other's companionship? There is where the true test will lie. Verily, this would probably be the most perplexing challenge Tarrant had ever taken on.

Continuing to reach back, Tarrant suddenly realized he was alone. _What?_ he thought. He threw the covers off of himself and leapt out of the bed, now fully awake and feeling the stirrings of another kind of emotion beginning within him. He grabbed a pair of lounging pants from where they had been discarded the night before and practically jumped into them, so fast was he moving now. Standing with absolute stillness, he sent out a pulse along the fae and through the castle. Nothing. He isn't here. _He isn't here!_

Darkness began to mist out from his skin as he remained in that stance for a time. Then, quick as a thought, he left the bedroom and flew down the corridor to the main hallway. He paused at the top of the staircase that led down to the main floor, gripping the railing until it began to splinter under his hands. Ice formed around the area he touched and further warped the wooden structure. _How could he? Was he too afraid to face me in the light?! Am I mistaken about all of this? What a fool I have been!_

In his mind, Tarrant formed what, in his opinion, must have happened. Damien had gone along with him willingly, true. But he must have had another game at play. Yes. _He did not know how to leave me gracefully and return to his precious Patriarch and his other whores. And so he casts me aside in secret._ Anger such as had never been conjured sliced and burned through the adept's body, and coldfire begin to lick up his legs. Ice formed beneath his bare feet, cracking the tiles it covered. Finally, he could contain it no more. Though he hated loss of control, he hated even more the thought of not _reacting_ to this insult.

The deep purple of the dark fae wound around his body and began to spread from him, corrupting everything it touched. The fires in the lamps went out, and then the lamps themselves shattered. Plants lining areas of the hallways wilted and became petrified remnants of vegetation, their pots cracking and falling apart. Every muscle taught with unspent tension, arms remaining thrust at his sides, he looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. And then, with a burst of un-light, the coldfire blasted forth from all areas of the adept's tall frame. It devastated all it touched. Out and around the double-headed staircase the blue-white flames flowed in a torrential downpouring of annihilation. Stone cracked under the ice-like burn of the fire, and anything less than stone…cinders. The outpour of fiery emotion from Tarrant lasted barely a minute, but the results of those sixty seconds…were terrifying. Within the blink of a human eye, the flames rolled into themselves and disappeared, leaving only the dark fae surrounding the adept. Not even the Hunter himself had ben aware he was capable of instantaneous destruction on such a grand scale.

He gazed out over the front part of the grand entrance hall…or what was left of it. Stone and mortar even now continued cracking and sliding out of place in the walls. The double-flighted stairs had an outline left to them, stark and skeletal; whether they were composed of ash or something more solid couldn't be determined with the eye alone. The enormous 10 inch thick alteroak and metal doors had not been spared either. One had blown clear out of its portal and slid across the courtyard outside. The other had blown open and half burned down to char, but the bottom portion still clung by one extremely battered hinge at an awkward angle. Nothing else was left in the path of the explosive power of the Hunter that indicated evidence of resembling its former state of being.

Fists clenched tightly at his sides, Tarrant stalked to edge of where one of the lengths of stairs _used_ to descend. The dark fae clothed him in such a tightly wound manner so as to obscure the fact that he was still shirtless. Images flickered about him of pain and blood and death only to be quickly resorbed into the blackened wasteland that was now his heart. As he looked down in disdain at the remnants of the staircase, ice crystals shot out in front of his feet, forming a small pedestal in the air. As he stepped upon it, another formed slightly below that one, and on and on down to the floor below. He descended as might a hunting cat of the mountains, all grace, strength, and focus.

About two icy steps from the floor, Tarrant heard footsteps running, and a voice called out from just outside the entryway, "Gerald! Are you all right? I heard all this noise and saw the doors fly out, and…and…um…" Damien trailed off as he entered and saw the desolation left by Tarrant's outburst. The knight looked around and let out a low whistle, "Who broke in, Gerald? More insane church fanatics? Must have been somebody you knew for _this_ length of grand destruction, huh?" Damien's gaze wandered around the room, taking in the whole of the ruin, before finally settling hazel eyes on Tarrant. A piece of stained glass chose this moment to fall from a side window and shattered upon contact with ground. Tarrant stared in utter disbelief at the man before him, his mind shattering along with the glass. The ice under his feet broke into thousands of crystalline pieces, and he half fell, half stumbled, flat onto his ass. Sitting there looking up at Damien, not even five feet from him now, his perceptions came crashing down around him, and he felt relief, shame, guilt, and a rush of warmth all at once.

Seeing the loss of concentration and the subsequent look that flashed across the Hunter's face, Damien placed the pieces together in his mind and began laughing. There was such mirth inside him that it took quite a while for him to catch enough breath to squeeze out the words, "You…did this…because of…_**me**_?!" And he continued laughing again at the answering annoyance that settled on the angelic and disheveled features of his lover. "Gerald, please…I'm not…ever…I couldn't…oh, God, I love you!" And suddenly Damien was picked up and none too gently pushed into what was left of the wall behind him. He could feel the cold chill of the Hunter's power still residing there against his back. A hand at his chin tilted his head to face the ceiling, and he felt a sharp sting at his neck and a pulling at his soul, "Ow! What the hell?!" He tried to reach up to it, but he found his arms enshrouded in dark fae. The tugging at his spirit ended quickly, and he felt chill breath against his skin as the Hunter whispered, "You will pay for this deception, priest." And a tongue flicked out to lick his broken skin. Held rigid by the deep purple bands of fae, and light-headed from the bite and the emotions he was experiencing, Damien whispered back as he was finally allowed to look down and into those shining silver points of light, "Yeah, but I bet I'll enjoy every moment of it." And the Hunter claimed his revenge amidst the devastation born of his hate…his love.

**End Note**: Ah, I just had to get that out! I have often wondered what would happen in the morning after all those other occurrences I've written and read about! Hope I did it well enough for everyone. If not, then write it yourself! No really, please write something so I have some more to read! ;)


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